2010

PipeLineNews Archives: March 2012

Copts Flee Egyptian Puppet Assembly

March 29, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to The Egyptian Independent [source, http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/741466] Egypt's Christian Copts have fully withdrawn their support of the country's radical Muslim Brotherhood led assembly.

"State-run MENA news service reported on Thursday that the Coptic Orthodox Church withdrew its representatives from the constituent assembly that is meant to draft the new constitution. The Islamist-dominated assembly is currently facing fierce criticism..."

The legislative body is led by the MB's Saad al-Katatni.

Egypt's parliamentary elections have been widely criticized as being of questionable legitimacy, with the Muslim Brotherhood exerting almost complete control over the process whereby the legislature was chosen, which is reflected in the Muslim Brotherhood's domination of the legislature.

March 26, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In an Associated Press video published last week by the Washington Post, AP continued its baseless attack on the NYPD's terror surveillance program, charging that coincident with NY's demonstrations [upwards of 1,800 arrested] against the 2004 Republican Convention, "...undercover cops monitored certain groups, anti war organizations, environmental advocates, even church groups...but a new document uncovered by the Associated Press showed that those tactics went on for years after the convention. NYPD officers spied on liberal organizations, even kept files on particular people based on their political leanings..." [source, AP Video. supporting article New Orleans 'summit' among liberal gatherings infiltrated by New York police]

The video features a number of those "targeted" by the NYPD program including Jordan Flaherty1, identified on screen simply as a "demonstrator." [Note: Although Mr. Flaherty's politics will, in part, be dealt with in this piece, Eugene Puryear 2 was similarly highlighted in the AP video and also tagged as a demonstrator. Like Mr.Flaherty, Mr. Puryear was passed off as a liberal].

The purpose then of this essay is to briefly deconstruct AP's use of the term liberal in this matter.

Upon investigation, Mr. Flaherty is a bit more threatening than AP's labeling might suggest.

For example he edits the Marxist publication, "Left Turn, Notes From the Global Intifada" [see, http://www.leftturn.org/]. The publication [February was its last print edition, according to the website] defines itself as, "a national network of activists engaged in exposing and fighting the consequences of global capitalism and imperialism. Rooted in a variety of social movements, we are anti-capitalists, radical feminists, anti-racists, queer and trans- liberationists, and anti-imperialists working to build resistance and alternatives to corporate power and empire."

In short form then Mr. Flaherty is a hard-left revolutionary, not a liberal.

What seems to have caught the attention of the NYPD in his case was Flaherty's participation at a radical anti-capitalist event in New Orleans, the "New Orleans Summit," as well his alleged previous membership in the "International Solidarity Movement" [ISM]. AP seems non-plussed by the potential threat posed by such an ideologue.

The ISM is a notorious "pro-Palestinian" group which according to one of its key members, had a working relationship with terrorist outfits including Hamas. It should come as no surprise that the group was founded by extreme leftists.

The New Orleans Summit featured as one of its opening ceremony presenters [not identified on the recording] an organizer who declared, "I want to welcome you all...we are very proud to be hosting this event, the beginning of three days of resistance to the security and prosperity partnership of America...our continuing resistance to global capitalism, colonialism and racism..." [source, Internet Archive retrieval, New Orleans Summit, MP3 recording]

Among the meeting's sponsoring groups, which we assume the AP would also characterize as "liberal," were the Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), the United States Marxist Lenonist Organization, CIEPAC, A.C. (Center for Economic, Political Investigations for Community Action) - Chiapas, Mexico as well as Flaherty's Left Turn Magazine.

Misleading reporting seems to have become a mainstay practice of Associated Press and this matter is no different. Despite AP's strident accusations suggesting that the NYPD surveillance operation is using racial, ethnic and political profiling to harass and intimidate Muslim Americans, the NY Intel unit is widely recognized as being, by far the most effective local level anti-terror organization within the United States, having broken-up numerous Islamic terror plots.

AP's motives in slanting news coverage are impossible to determine with any certainty; the organization is tight lipped, but the sheer fact that it has been caught publishing [and then shamed into retracting] doctored photos, which along with its omnipresent and ham-fisted cheerleading for the left, makes it impossible to really trust any political copy generated by it.

In the current case, AP shielded the nature of some of the alleged victims of NYPS's surveillance by defining them in non-threatening terms, in order to pursue its stance that NYPD is out of control and willfully violating the civil rights of New Yorkers.

This plays into the larger MSM narrative, pushed by Hamas friendly American Islamist groups primarily, that America is an Islamophobic nation.

What AP and its brethren are doing, vis-à-vis its use of the straw-dog of Islamophobia, is aiding American Islamists in helping to enforce the precepts of Shari'a, which broaches no criticism.

In this regard AP is actively aiding the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to slowly Islamize the United States and the rest of the "infidel" West, by muzzling itself.

Those involved in the increasingly successful attempt to further Shari'a establishment [or in the case of the hard-left, those desirous of overthrowing American democracy] are 180 degrees out of phase with the definition of "liberal."

Individuals and organizations which seek political dominion via religious or political fanaticism, represent an existential threat to Western culture. The fact that AP either doesn't understand the enabling process in which they seem to be engaged, or worse, fully understands the back-story here, will further erode AP's already sketch reputation.

It strains credulity, but it seems that AP actually believes that political beliefs should be of no concern in counter-terrorism efforts. The inference here is that any and all political ideologies, no matter how subversive they might be, should be shielded against the good faith, reasonable efforts of law enforcement to prevent mass casualty events.

If, in AP's opinion such individuals represent no threat to civil society, then the organization is in the throes of a breathtaking cognitive dissonance which lies far beyond the remedy of simply correcting its misrepresentations and getting back to reporting and not making the news.

End Notes:

1. In a bio offered by the lefty Huff Post, Mr. Flaherty is described in part as, "a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine, and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting has been featured in a wide range of publications including the New York Times, Mother Jones, and Argentina's Clarin. Audiences around the world have seen the television reports he's produced for Al-Jazeera..." [source, Flaherty bio, Huffington Post]

The Christian Science Monitor debunked the fallacious MSM [calling it a disgrace, very strong criticism indeed of the legacy media] account of the "Jena 6" as follows:

"...By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests - the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice..." [source, Craig Franklin, A local journalist tells the story you haven't heard, Christian Science Monitor]

Additionally Mr. Flaherty wrote the chapter entitled, "Organizing International Solidarity with Palestine," [pg. 187-191] in the 2003 book, "Live From Palestine, International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Israeli Occupation." [see, Table of Contents]. The forward of this book was written by the noted leftist theoretician/linguist, Noam Chomsky.

2. Eugene Puryear, also highlighted in the AP video and represented simply as a demonstrator, is a Marxist and member of the "Party for Socialism and Liberation."

According to his Wiki, he was the party's VP candidate for President of the United States in the 2008 election. [source, Puryear Wiki]

Puryear is a prolific writer whose product is regularly featured on the Party for Socialism and Liberation's website, where he writes, "...The reason that the Communist Manifesto remains such an inspiration for revolutionary change is that it is not just the musings of social reformers, philosophers or political wannabes. It is a working class guide for changing the world..." [source, Eugene Puryear The Communist Manifesto, A working-class guide to changing the world]

March 27, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Ever since the fraudulent Iranian elections of 2009 - in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader  cracks within the Islamic establishment have widened to unprecedented levels.

Many within the Revolutionary Guards, the very force that has protected the clerical regime since its inception in 1979, have become disgruntled. Former high commanders have publicly criticized Khamenei, something that courts execution, as the regime's clerics have stated that obeying the supreme leader is like obeying Allah; those disobeying him will be considered a "Mohareb," an enemy of God, and therefore killed as justified under Islam.

Former senior Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Alaei, in an op-ed in a state-owned newspaper, openly criticized the Islamic leadership for suppressing the people and not allowing criticism of the supreme leader and of the direction of the country. He came immediately under attack by Khamenei's supporters, the piece was pulled from the paper's website, and radicals attacked his home.

Last month, Iranian state-owned media announced the death of Ahmad Sodagar, a high-ranking Guard commander. The cause of death was listed as heart attack. Interestingly, he was the fifth Guard commander to have "died of a heart attack" last month. Reports from within Iran revealed that he had stated in his will that if he died soon, it would be because of his belief in justice.

Sodagar, a major general, had served as the head of security and intelligence of the Guards' Khatam-al-Anbia Base and was the chief commander of the Guards' Prophet Mohammad Division. He had served in the Iran-Iraq War and, at the time of his death, was the head of the program "Defaeh Moghadas," or Holy Defense.

All commanders who have mysteriously died recently were in their early 50s.

The objection to Khamenei's iron-fisted rule is not limited to the Guards. Many dissidents, once loyal to the regime, have been voicing their resentment openly and are paying the price.

Mehdi Khazali, an ophthalmologist and the son of prominent hard-line cleric Ayatollah Khazali, has long blogged about his opposition to Khamenei and the crimes committed under his rule, revealing the cruel conditions under which prisoners are held after phony trials. Many, he says, were convicted as payback for their disagreement with regime officials.

Mehdi has been in and out of prison for several years but was detained on Jan. 9, and after 70 days of a hunger strike  the only option available to political prisoners in Iran to get the word out to the world  the regime was forced to release him just days ago from Evin Prison.

Mehdi, now a hero to Iranians with his defiance of Khamenei's dictatorship, is not alone. Another dissident, Mohammad Nourizad, a conservative journalist who himself continues to criticize Khamenei and the regime despite being jailed, beaten, and threatened, recently wrote his 25th open letter to Khamenei brazenly warning that not only clerics, but Islam itself will be annihilated within the country due to the resentment by the people against the regime.

In his last letter to Khamenei, Nourizad said, "In the years after the revolution, we under the banner of Islam have murdered many, confiscated people's belongings, have filled our prisons with disgruntled people and have expanded ignorance. What are our clerics hoping for, what miracle are they looking for? I have one solution for this great sin to be washed away, and that's for the clerics of Iran to burn themselves."

He warns that the ayatollahs and their supporters should not take his words as a metaphor or as scoffing, but rather as a serious way out of this dilemma. If they don't set themselves on fire because of the regime's heinous actions and save their souls, he said, "they must be ready to carry the coffin of Islam over their shoulders and every day witness people's hatred for Islam, which must be worse than dying a thousand times for them."

The burning of the ayatollahs will be the least cost, Nourizad said, in helping with the collapse of this criminal regime and in preventing more killings and chaos. He said he is ready to do the same in protest against the crimes being committed by the regime and that if only a handful of ayatollahs would follow suit, their names would "be carved in history that they were aligned with the oppressed, wanting to free themselves from the tyrant."

Nourizad and many others in Iran have warned Khamenei and the clerics that power is not everlasting, that they should look at history, and that the day will come when people will have their say and justice will be served.

Though tens of thousands have lost their lives at the hands of the Islamic regime and tens of thousands wallow in prison, the West remains quiet and still hopeful of negotiations. However, Khamenei and his cronies are determined to see their mission, as they see it, completed: they are mandated by Allah to defeat America and Israel, they believe, for Islam seeks blood, and the mission won't end until Islam's flag is raised in all corners of the world.

March 22, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - For the better part of two days the MSM did everything it could to suggest that the gangland style murder of French Jews living in Toulouse, was committed by favorite whipping boy, the "right wing."

Unfortunately for them, now we now know the truth; the shooter was a Muslim fanatic, Mohamed Merah, who has now assumed room temperature due to the [overdue] actions of French authorities after a long standoff which resulted in additional law enforcement casualties.

The text of the post-massacre manifesto produced by the organization's on whose behalf Merah allegedly acted - the Tariq bin Ziad Brigade and Jund al-Khilafa Brigades - is reproduced below.

In the name of Allah the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate"

"Praise Allah only and prayer and peace upon the most honorable of messengers [Verse]"

"On Tuesday, March 19, one of the Islamic knights, brother 'Yousef al-Faransi'  we ask Allah to accept him  took off in an operation that shook the pillars of the Zionist-Crusade in the entire world and filled the hearts of Allah's enemies with terror."

"We hereby claim responsibility for these blessed operations, and we say that what Israel is committing of crimes against our people on the blessed land of Palestine, and in Gaza specifically, will not pass without punishment. The Mujahideen everywhere intend on avenging every drop of blood that was unjustly and aggressively shed in Palestine, Afghanistan and other Muslim homelands."

"O' enemies of Allah, by Allah we will not calm down and we will not sleep until we kill you like you killed us, and until we avenge the honors of the free ones, our sisters who are sitting in the prisons of the Jews and in European countries."

"We hereby call upon the French government to relook into its policies toward the Muslims in the world, and to surrender its aggressive discrimination toward Islam and its Sharia, because such policy will only bring it calamities and destruction."

"As for the Jews, we tell them: do not be fooled by your situation, we are to meet with you and we yearn to it more than yearning to wed to the most beautiful brides in the world. Our date with you is near, and you will be stunned by what you will find from us Allah-willing."

Tariq bin Ziad BrigadeJund al-Khilafa Brigades

Please note in contravention to the prevailing wisdom of most of the MSM, the murderous anti-Semitism the message conveys as well as its prominent linkage [suggesting a certain degree of interchangeability] between Islam and Qur'anic law, the Shari'a.

February 27, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - As murder and mayhem further engulfs Afghanistan following the inadvertent burning of a few Qur'ans by soldiers at Bagram Air Force Base, two facts appear to have eluded the media and thereby, the public. Namely that Qur'ans are freely distributed by all the major Muslim organizations to non Muslims as part of their da'wa [Islamic proselytizing] efforts and that Muslims themselves often show scant respect for the their sacred text.

Some of the Qur'ans which were burned had been used to transmit radical messages by inmates at the jails where the texts had been disseminated. These detainees had absolutely no problem desecrating them, for a "higher" purpose. Additionally, Muslim bombers have no qualms about attacking mosques and incinerating both the worshippers and their "Holy Qur'ans."

One example of how the book is distributed without caring about how it will be treated is demonstrated by the Muslim Student Association, a Muslim Brotherhood linked group, which routinely rolls out "da'wa tables" at universities offering free Qur'ans for the taking. Similarly, mosques distribute "the revealed word of God," to anyone who requests a copy - no questions asked.

Perhaps the most recent egregious example of this continuing pattern of disrespect of Islam's holiest religious icon involves the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR, an Hamas linked Islamist pressure group], which has at various times run massive Qur'an distribution campaigns urging non-Muslims to sign up to receive one for free1. According to the CAIR "Share The Qur'an" website, "Approximately 40 million Americans would like to receive a copy of the Qur'an." The meaning of this program is unambiguous, the group hopes that the book ends up in the hands of millions. If the recipients happen to be infidels, so what? [source, http://www.explorethequran.com/the-quran-campaign/the-reach.html]

Speaking of hands, American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay have been ordered to wear gloves when handling the Qur'an since under Shari'a, even non-Muslims are expected to perform wu'du [ritual cleansing] before touching it. Complex guidelines exist for dealing with this matter but the consensus appears to be that an Arabic text Qur'an should not be touched by non-believers period and that even those books which have been translated from the Arabic, but still contain the original text must be similarly treated.

After the intentional Qur'an burning by Pastor Terry Jones in Florida, the Islamic Circle of North America [ICNA, part of the Islamist network] issued a press release announcing that they would "up" the distribution of Qur'ans by distributing "10,000 free copies of the Qur'an through its 1-877-WhyIslam outreach project in response to the Gainesville event." The Southern California chapter launched a Qur'an giveaway called "Sponsor A Qur'an," specifically for this cause." [see. http://www.icna.org/Qur'an-burning-877-whyislam-southern-california-responds]

Regardless, even the groveling apologies issued by Obama and other high ranking American officials regarding the burning incident have been met with scorn and derision by Afghani Muslims - why miss an opportunity to rail against the "infidel foreign aggressors"?

Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai has called for the people responsible to be tried according to Shari'a. Pundits predict that we will see a spike in violence due to incitement by imams during Friday prayers. What should be obvious is that nothing any non-Muslim can do will quell this Muslim rage. The calls of "Die Die foreigners" and Muslim willingness to die to avenge the perceived insult to their religion is indicative of the unreconstructed nature of Islam.

So what do we have here?

Given that Islam is a triumphalist religion which demands abject submission, just about any method can be used to advance it. Therefore Muslims are free to employ the Quranic doctrine of takiyya - wherein lying, cheating or any kind of deceit may be employed if it furthers Islamic religious purpose, so what could possibly be wrong with a free distribution program which will undoubtedly land a few Qur'ans in pigsties, fireplaces, toilets and the like?

Real outrage has nothing to do with the increasing bloodshed in Afghanistan over this incident. Why would these religious fanatics shy away from any behavior which seeks to cast non-Muslims - especially the United States, with its super-majority of Christians in the worst possible light?

End note:

1. PipeLineNews.org's reference library contains numerous freely obtained Qur'ans. One of these - a particularly ornate copy [1,164 pages in length, printed in Dubai] - was distributed a number of years ago, totally free of charge [including postage] courtesy of CAIR. It's parchment like, gold edged pages are set within an expensive cloth bound hardback cover, the type of coffee table book for which one might expect to pay upwards of $75. Our, over ten year history of unrelenting criticism of political Islam including the Sharia, CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MPAC etc., was apparently not considered a sufficient impediment to receipt of this gift.

March 22, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Iranian agents have successfully infiltrated American think-tanks, universities, and our political system as part of a plot to keep the United States from attacking the Islamic regime as it continues to expand terrorism worldwide and pursue its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The infiltration goal is to mold American opinion and create doubt about the advisability of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities  all part of a longstanding strategy to pull the strings of America and the West.

Iranian leaders first successfully engaged U.S. forces in Iraq at a time when President Bush was in an offensive policy of confronting Islamists after 9/11. The Iranians correctly believed that if America got bogged down in Iraq, it would not want to open another front with Iran before stabilizing Iraq, buying Iran time for nuclear development.

Iran had already infiltrated the Shiite majority in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. At that time, I was working as a CIA spy in the Revolutionary Guards and was reporting their activities to America. When the U.S. went to war against Saddam, the Iranians began a campaign of terror in Iraq that not only crippled America financially by stringing out an unfunded war, but killed many U.S. soldiers.

The same infiltration policy was enforced in Afghanistan with the training and arming of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters against NATO forces.

That strategy kept Iran's rulers out of harm's way, allowed them to pursue their nuclear and missile programs with impunity, and forced America to rethink its involvement in the region. They called their strategy a great victory over the "Great Satan."

Their planning was multilayered. Another aspect of it was to infiltrate America itself, a plan right of the KGB playbook. Fake dissidents were placed in America's think-tanks and pro-Iran academics in its universities. Nonprofit organizations were formed. All the ensuing propaganda targeted American public opinion and foreign policy.

The Iranian agents easily became the voice for negotiations and argued against sanctions and war. They successfully attached themselves to antiwar groups, including Occupy Wall Street, and infiltrated the American media, mostly those open to their softer approach.

In this Iranian Intelligence Ministry plot, outlines were passed to its assets in the U.S. to use such arguments as:

1. Sanctions hurt innocent Iranians and not the regime;

2. any act of war will unite Iranians around the very regime they despise;v3. the nuclear issue is a nationalistic issue that the majority of Iranians support and therefore cannot be the center of the West's confrontation with Iran;

4. Iranian dissidents don't want the West's support because if the West supports them, the regime will label them as Western agents; and

5. Iran is a rational regime, and negotiations are the only way to resolve the issues.

The strategy sought to buy time to build a formidable military so the West would fear retaliation should it attack the regime, which knew full well that the global economy is dependent on a stable flow of energy out of the Persian Gulf and that any long-term disruption could create havoc for the U.S. and West.

The Islamic regime today has over 1,000 ballistic missiles, many in underground silos spread throughout the country and capable of reaching not only every U.S. military base in the region, but also capitals in Western Europe. Meanwhile, it is working on intercontinental ballistic missiles with the help of China and North Korea.

It also has armed Hezb'allah with 40,000 rockets and missiles and armed Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Syria with missiles, explosives, and conventional weapons. Meanwhile, it has expanded its collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and rebels in Yemen and Bahrain, and extended its reach into Latin America and Africa.

This strategy has bought Iran sufficient time to produce enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs and speed up its enrichment to the 20-percent level at the Natanz and Fordow facilities. That material within weeks could be further enriched to weaponization grade.

Iran's leaders believe that with the current global economic climate, specifically in the United States and Europe, and it being an American election year, the talks of a military option to take out the nuclear facilities amount to a bluff. They believe they hold the key to President Obama's re-election, as any instability in the region and in the price of energy will send America back into a severe recession.

More dangerous is their belief that even a limited conflict with America will help their status as the leader of a worldwide Islamic movement and trigger the downfall of regimes in the region more friendly to the U.S.; help the Syrian regime out of its current crisis; and push the military junta out of power in Egypt, helping solidify control by the Muslim Brotherhood.

As the Iranian strategist Mehdi Mohammadi recently stated, as Iran progresses on the nuclear front, the West will realize that not only will a military option no longer work, but neither will sanctions. Then the West will have to accept a nuclear Iran.

Iranian leaders also believe that since Israel would now have to act alone, it will not risk thousands of missiles from many fronts raining down on Tel Aviv and ultimately will also accept a nuclear Iran.

Most of all, they believe that once Iran is nuclear-armed, the West will be checkmated, as the cost of any confrontation at that time would be the destruction of the world.

The leaders of the Islamic regime have often said, "While the West loves life, martyrdom is an honor for us."

Therein lies the dilemma for the West: bear the economic and human costs of destroying Iran's nuclear facilities now, or accept a nuclear-armed Iran that is bent on paving the way for the return of the 12th Imam Mahdi and the global dominance of Islam.

Why Is WA State U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan Working With CAIR?

By WILLIAM MAYER

March 21, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Since the DOJ's U.S. Attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their various districts, we were more than a bit surprised to find that Jenny Durkan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington State, had developed an ongoing relationship with the tainted Islamist pressure group, the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR].

CAIR, for those not thoroughly conversant with the group's history, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest domestic Hamas terror funding prosecution in U.S. history [U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation]. The conclusion of the trial found all defendants [including a prominent member of the Texas chapter of CAIR, Ghassan Elashi] convicted on a combined total of over 100 charges.1

At the time of his conviction Mr. Elashi was already serving a lengthy sentence due to his conviction on another terror related matter [see, U.S. vs. Infocom, superseding indictment located at, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/infocom/uselashi121702sind.pdf]]

CAIR has been named in federal court documents as being closely aligned with Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group created by the Muslim Brotherhood, "The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, with NAIT, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas," U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009, ruling" [source, The Investigative Project: Federal Judge Agrees: CAIR Tied to Hamas.

Based upon the treasure trove of information regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and its front-groups' strategy to slowly Islamize North America which was presented into evidence at the Holy Land prosecution, the FBI discontinued its relationship with the now undeniably terror-linked group. In order to emphasize the point the agency's Director, Robert Mueller, declared in a House Judiciary Committee proceeding, "We have no formal relationship with CAIR because of concerns with regards to national leadership..." [source, News 9 Oklahoma City, http://www.news9.com/Global/story.asp?S=14328429]

March 15, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The head of Iran's Basij paramilitary force says his country has no choice but to destroy America in order to build an ideal society.

In a video broadcast to Basij members on Feb. 26, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi said the Islamic regime's "independence and unhindered advance toward perfection is subject to removing the despotic powers and the Zionists," referring to America and Israel.

"In every field in which the Islamic Republic of Iran tries to advance," Naqdi said, "America is there to create obstacles for us...When we want progress in science, they enforce sanctions and kill our scientists."

The Basij force is a militia unit, established in 1979 by revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, best known as a security force responsible for reacting to protests and other assemblies of dissident groups. It is a subset of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Naqdi, who was born in Iraq, was a member of the Iranian Quds Force - another Guards subgroup - and involved in international terrorism before Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed him to command the Basij in 2009. He has previously threatened to assassinate American generals in retaliation for the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Last year, the U.S. Treasury slapped sanctions on Naqdi for human rights abuses during the country's 2009 pro-democracy uprising.

"As long as America exists, we will not rest," Naqdi said. "In revealing the truth about America and the Zionists, we must raise public hate against the despotic powers and create the environment for the destruction of America."

One week after Naqdi's speech, during an event at the University of Tehran called "Quds [Jerusalem] Is Calling Us," Iranian ideologue Hassan Rahimpour Azghodi said the Saudi monarchy also must be destroyed, since it would result in the destruction of Israel.

Azghodi emphasized that the Saudi regime is heavily dependent on America and is supporting Israel behind the scenes, making its destruction a priority.

The speed with which changes are taking place in the region, Azghodi said, is unprecedented and could result in major political changes at a historic pace.

"Some Zionists compare the current climate in the Middle East to the environment which existed in World War I and World War II when major geopolitics of the world changed," Azghodi added.

"Currently some of the dependent regimes have fallen," he said, referring to nations that are friendly to the United States, "and the Islamic movement is set to change the setting of the world."

Azghodi descried what he said were two fronts in this global confrontation. "One front is clearly supporting the Zionists, and in reality the Zionists are considered as a family: America, Europe and the corrupt Arabic regimes who have for over 30 years opposed our Islamic revolution."

"On the other side is the front that carries the flag of Islam, which has changed the geopolitics of the region."

Khamenei, who holds absolute power in Iran despite the presence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a figurative president, has repeatedly called the uprisings in the region an "Islamic Awakening," claiming that the region's repeated uprisings are a "clear indication of the fact that Allah's promises mentioned in the Holy Quran are definitely materialized."

Azghodi ominously warned that events in the coming months will be hard for anyone to predict, but he promised that the downfall of Israel is closer than ever.

In a September 2011 speech broadcast on Iranian state television, Azghodi spoke of the presence of "fellow fighters" on five continents, and the need for Muslims to get ready for a global operation and an international jihad in preparation of the coming of the Imam Mahdi.

Mahdi is the Shiites' 12th Imam, whose messianic return Shiites believe will accompany the killing of all infidels and the raising of Islam's flag in all corners of the world.

January 30, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In words which should fall reassuringly upon the ears of Mr. Obama and his dysfunctional State Dept., the Muslim Brotherhood today proclaimed that it is devoted to peace, having demonstrated a, "long record of commitment to non-violence":

"Now consider the history of the political Islamist actor that probably is receiving more attention than any other these days: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. That history is one of decades of remarkable forbearance and endurance in the face of different degrees of repression by different Egyptian regimes. The Brotherhood has a long record of commitment to nonviolence - a record that has made it the target of vehement denunciation by the likes of al-Qaeda. What is there about the Brotherhood, beyond its Islamist coloration, that should make it any more the object of suspicion than other parties, movements and groups vying for influence in a new Egypt? How else should it have behaved to make us less suspicious?"

[source, Ikhwanweb, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29616]

That is a rather odd claims for a group whose motto is "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

January 30, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "Approximately 60 percent of the world's oil supplies are under the control of the soldiers of Imam Khamenei," said Major General Naghdi, the chief commander of Iran's Basij forces.

General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, who was born in Iraq, was a member of the Iranian Quds Force involved in international terrorism before he was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei to the post of commander of the Basij in 2009. He previously stated that Iran has no option but to destroy Israel.

Naghdi also stated today that, not only the Strait of Hormuz, but most strategic waterways are under the control of Islamic nations. He added that now that America has removed its forces from Iraq, there is no obstacle for the final march towards Jerusalem. From the east of the subcontinent of India to the territory of Palestine, the Islamic movement is ready to mobilize and the West should know that if they dare to create instability for the region, the Islamic nations are ready to respond.

January 27, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relation [a disgraced organization, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the nation's largest domestic Hamas terror funding prosecution, U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation1] has lately been making waves in the Big Apple's media market.

CAIR and its media cohorts, primarily the New York Times, suggest that the movie is a dark work which stokes religious hatred.

All of the usual suspects have chimed in of course, supporting CAIR's preposterous claims while trying to gain sufficient political momentum to justify censorship of speech that is critical of Islamism - a central tenet of Shari'a, Islamic law.

It's important to note that the film is narrated by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim with an impeccable pedigree, "...Jasser is the son of Muslim-Syrian immigrants. After medical school, Jasser served as a US Navy doctor. He was later an Attending Physician to the US Congress. Jasser has since been in the private practice of internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix. He is the immediate-Past President of the Arizona Medical Association." [source, http://www.thethirdjihad.com/about_new.php]

He instructed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the chief commander of the Quds Forces, to prepare the ground for terrorist attacks, first to retaliate against assassination and espionage within the Iranian nuclear program, and second, to go on the offensive to make the West understand that any military action against Iran will create much instability in the world.

January 26, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Iran's religious and military leaders are making a major miscalculation in their confrontation with the United States that could destroy Iran and the current regime.

By refusing to address the concerns of the international community over its nuclear program, and by threatening to close the critical maritime Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is playing with fire.

In his State of the Union address, President Obamaagain said that he will "take no options off the table" in stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, while Israeli officials have stated the same, meaning a military strike is possible.

The American media are full of commentary warning against a military conflict ? provoked by Iran blocking the strait or by crossing a nuclear red line. Now significant figures in Iran are sounding the same alarm, worried that the leaders of the Islamic regime do not understand the realities of such conflict.

In thanking Meshaal, Morsi stressed that, "the Palestinian issue was, is and will remain in the hearts of the Egyptian people, particularly the FJP, especially since it was one of the key drivers of the Revolution of the Egyptian people who rejected the actions and stances of the former regime towards the Palestinian cause, especially the brave resistance against the occupation..." [source, Ikhwanweb, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29593]

Several other members of the MB leadership were also in attendance as was Mohamed Nasr, a key advisor to Meshaal and part of Hamas' political bureau.

January 23, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The threat by the Islamic regime in Iran to close down the Strait of Hormuz and of Revolutionary Guards Navy boats harassing U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf has caused President Obama to send secret messages to the regime stating his concerns over the closure of the strait and the possibility of an accidental war.

Since then, Iranian officials have been revealing the contents of President Obama's letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which indicates a deep desire by the U.S. president for a dialogue with the radical leaders of Iran. However, on Saturday, Iranian officials also claimed that an oral message by Obama delivered through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran is even more revealing than the letter delivered to the Iranian supreme leader.

According to Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Ebrahimi, the vice chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, alleged that on Saturday in a meeting between Swiss Ambassador Livia Leu Agosti and Iranian Foreign Ministry officials, Agosti informed the Iranian officials that Obama recognizes Iran's right of access to and use of nuclear technology.

January 23, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a 7 a.m. PST posting, an aide for Senator Rand Paul tweeted, "Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He's currently being detained by TSA in Nashville" [source, http://twitter.com/#!/moirabagley/status/161463071724945408]

Paul has been a particularly vociferous critic of the Transportation Safety Administration's airport security policies, hence the fear expressed by some that this might be some form of retaliation by Janet Napolitano's incompetent bureaucracy.

According to a posting on the ABC news website [see, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html] and others, there was an apparent malfunction in the scanner through which the Senator was being processed thus prompting a call for a full body pat down.

January 20, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Press TV, a venture fully under the control of Iran's central government, today lost its license to broadcast in the UK.

Before taking the action, the country's media regulator, Ofcom, had levied a sizable fine [$155k] against the enterprise after it aired an interview with a Newsweek reporter who was jailed in 2009 by the Mullocracy.

"...Yet it is not entirely out of the blue: the controversial broadcaster was threatened with a ban last year, after it emerged that it had aired an interview with Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist, while he was imprisoned in Iran in 2009..."

There seemed to be general consensus within Ofcam that since Tehran retains editorial control of the broadcaster's content and given its refusal to pay the fine, the regulator had little choice but to boot Press TV from the airwaves.

January 20, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On Wednesday, U.S. ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson attended a meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood's chairman, Mohamed Badi. Also in attendance was the MB's secretary general, Mahmoud Hussein as well as U.S. embassy official Donald Bloom.

During the meeting Badi made the declaration that the unpopularity of the United States in the Muslim world was due to, "...successive U.S. administrations supported dictators and helped them control their peoples, thus diminishing the popularity of the United States...we want to see actions, not words, for the U.S. to recover its credibility with the Arab and Muslim peoples, in particular with regard to Palestine - the top issue for Arabs and Muslims..." [source, Ikhwanweb, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29568].

According to the MB's coverage of the event, ambassador Patterson seemed to agree that previous administrations, "did make some mistakes," but was seeking to "learn" from them.

Apparently unchallenged by Patterson was Badi's contention that Shari'a - Islamic law - would continue to be the primary source of legislative activity in Egypt.

January 18, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Pakistan, proving itself to be less and less an ally, officially rejected administration special envoy Marc Grossman's planned trip to the troubled country.

"US special envoy Marc Grossman's visit to Pakistan for consultation on exploratory talks with Taliban has been put off as Islamabad rejected the move, a State Department official said..."

[source, The Times of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pakistan-cancels-US-special-envoy-Marc-Grossmans-visit/articleshow/11538124.cms]

The relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan has been extraordinarily strained since the kill operation mounted against al-Qaeda leader bin-Laden revealed him to be living in what was essentially plain sight in the military town of Abbottabad. Matters have been additionally compounded by a series of recent and controversial Predator drone attacks which have resulted in numerous Pakistani Army casualties [allegedly 24 in the month of November] and a month long suspension of attacks.

January 17, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PIpeLineNews.org - According to sources within Iran, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called an urgent meeting to address the situation in the Persian Gulf, specifically the Strait of Hormuz.

SepahOnline, a website for Iranian military insiders, reports that a secret memo, from the Revolutionary Guards' commanders stationed in the Persian Gulf to the supreme leader's office, suggests that the Ahmadinejad government's meddling in the Guards' activities in the Persian Gulf is sabotaging their efforts of preparing for war.

The report further indicates that Khamenei has assigned his son, Mojtaba, the task of monitoring the Guards' preparation for a possible conflict with America and has ordered Ahmadinejad's government to cooperate with him.

January 17, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - On Saturday, appearing on a prominent jihadist website, the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" proclaimed victory over American led forces in the now 10 year old war.

"In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan showed it openly to the world that it is a well-organized political power besides being a military power. It has ruled the country successfully and preserves the right and might of each and every decision of the country. It can neither accept external orders nor can it come under any one's pressure. It is proved to the world that the Islamic Emirate is deeply rooted internally in the Afghan nation and externally in the whole Islamic Ummah. Militarily successful resistance against a gigantic international alliance, full presence on the whole soil and overall perseverance are the signs and secrets of the Islamic Emirate...The contractors of the international invasion can no more deceive the nation by their baseless talks. They used the word 'peace' as a propaganda fragment to deceive the people. But today as their guardians and supporters are fed up militarily and logistically with this war and are planning for retreat, they are giving contradictory statements which show their complete confusion and embarrassment. Sometime they say that the office of the Islamic Emirate should be opened in some other country. Another time they say they have no part in this. The choice of Qatar for the inauguration of formal office shows the political deliberation of the Islamic Emirate."

January 17, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Iran's Despite the Obama administration's insistence that the Taliban is a serious negotiating partner, thus establishing a basis for the group's embassy type arrangement with Qatar, the terrorist group is apparently is stepping up attacks against U.S. interests in Afghanistan.

According to Iran's Press TV, today an attack took place at a U.S. military base located in Jalalabad, where a car bomb claimed the life of at least one individual. [see, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221519.html].

Additionally, the Washington Post is reporting that an anti-Taliban cleric was gunned down today while he prayed in a Khandahar mosque, "insurgents entered the mosque Tuesday morning and shot Mohammad Nahim Agha Mama as he worshipped, the Kandahar provincial governor's office said in a statement. A Pashtun tribal leader and local council member of the province's Dand district, Nahim was well known in the province for urging his followers not to join the Taliban." [source, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/avalanches-kill-14-in-afghanistan-karzai-urges-taliban-to-allow-polio-vaccine-teams/2012/01/17/gIQA3eet4P_story.html]

January 16, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Iran's Long planned war games involving the U.S. and Israel, emphasizing missile defense, were suddenly "postponed" apparently by a skitterish Obama administration, fearful of antagonizing Iran.

The defense exercise, entitled Austere Challenge 12, was to commence in April and would have been the largest such joint operation ever conducted between the two countries.

Though technically the games haven't been cancelled entirely, it's hard to imagine them being conducted six months from now during the heat of the American presidential contest during which Iran will necessarily be a major topic of concern.

January 15, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Iran is making a lot of trouble nowadays. Not only is Iran actively working on a nuclear weapons program, but also is this country threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit route of oil. Moreover, Iran is rapidly seeking to expand its influence in Latin America, at the expense of the United States. A recent visit by Iranian president and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his friend and ally Hugo Chávez , the Marxist president of Venezuela, as well as to Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, is indicative of this. Ahmadinejad's visit to Ecuador was the last stop on a five-day tour aimed at shoring up support in the region. "Here I want to declare very clearly from now on, Latin America will no longer be the backyard of the United States, the Iranian human rights violator was quoted by CNN.

It wasn't Ahmadinejad's first trip to Latin America and Hugo Chávez, in turn, also paid several visits to Tehran. Both countries concluded "a strategic alliance to end U.S. imperialism." "Imperialism" is an outdated Marxist ideological term used by the Marxists and their Iranian allies to accuse others of the very sins they are committing themselves. Meanwhile, crime is soring in Venezuela and the Venezuelan government is providing a safe haven to known Latin American drug lords and Colombian Marxist FARC rebels as well as to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.

January 13, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic regime in Iran, went public late Thursday calling the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the work of CIA and Mossad.

According to the Fars News Agency, Khamenei stated that Iran's nuclear program is not dependent on any individual and that the nuclear work will continue. He pledged that those who committed this crime will be brought to justice.

Khamenei went on to say, "This cowardly act of terror, whose perpetrators and plotters will never dare to confess to their dirty and hideous crime or accept responsibility for it, has been carried out with the planning or support of the CIA and Mossad intelligence services, like all other crimes of the network of international state terrorism."

January 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Iran's Fars News Agency is reporting that Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, who served as the director of the Natanz nuclear facility was assassinated today, "An Iranian university professor and deputy director at Natanz enrichment facility was killed in a terrorist bomb blast in a Northern Tehran neighborhood on Wednesday morning..." [source, http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010170677]

The method of the attack mirrored that of previous selective hits on Iran's top directorate of nuke engineers - Massoud Ali Mohammadi, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Majid Shahriyari [Davani was seriously wounded but has recovered] - in that a magnetic bomb was used.

January 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - In what was either a stunning admission or simply a case of expressing in public what is necessarily kept private, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the Supreme Leader's Advisor For Military Affairs is claiming confidence that Islamic ideology will triumph worldwide over competing systems.

"We witnessed the jolt of the Communist economy and today we will definitely witness the shaking of the capitalist economy as well...We are confident that Islamic ideology will rule over the man in future..."

Safavi's remarks clearly represent the thinking of Iran's Mullocracy, having been published today by the country's official news agency, Fars.

Critical observers of Islamism have continually asserted that the Islamic religion is far more than a simple belief system defining man's relationship with his Deity, but rather it constitutes a political/economic/military ideology which represents an existential threat to Western modes of governance and the non-Muslim world in general. Safavi's comments today are an admission that such is the case.

January 9, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Though the Brotherhood's English website has the reputation of having been designed to make the Ikhwan appear more moderate, we find one of the lead articles listed under, "About the Muslim Brotherhood," a glorification of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who under the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded Hamas. As one can see, the MB quite readily admits that it created the terrorist organization.

"Working as a preacher in Gaza allowed him to spread the MB ideas and to gather hundreds of supporters who later came to form the nucleus of Hamas. The message he spread was that the loss of Palestine in 1948 was merely a symptom of the stagnation of the Islamic Ummah. The solution he demanded lay in the reinstatement of Islam as a unifying political force by overthrowing all existing Arab secular regimes which he described as un-Islamic or anti-Islamic.

< [source, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=23862]

The question occurs [given that Obama is now actively working with the MB as the Islamist organization prepares the way for implementing full Shari'a compliance in Egypt] whether the president will take steps to have Hamas removed from the State Department's list of international terrorist organizations, given its undeniable linkage to the administration's new Middle East partner?

January 9, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - In an interview published today on the Muslim Brotherhood's English website, Mohamed Tosson, the Brotherhood's chief attorney and Secty General of Egypt's Bar Association, stated that the country's toppled president, Hosni Mubarak was guilty of multiple offenses which required imposing the death penalty.

"Mohammad Tosson...affirmed that all the evidence confirms beyond any doubt that the accused Hosni Mubarak did act jointly with former Interior Minister Habib El-Adli in the killing of peaceful demonstrators, and that these crimes were coupled with other offenses... to which the text of Article 234 of the Penal Code applies, under which the death penalty is appropriate in this case."

[source, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29530]

During judicial proceedings conducted today in Alexandria, Tosson also suggested that Mubarak's chief aides should likewise suffer the ultimate punishment.

January 9, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The war of words between Iran and the United States escalated dangerously Sunday over the Islamic regime's determination to develop nuclear weapons.

The Iranian leadership officially ordered its military commanders to close the Strait of Hormuz should Western sanctions be implemented on Iranian oil. Iran also announced it would be conducting ground war games, which would complement their recent naval war games intended to show they have the capacity to shut down the Strait.

About 35 percent of the world's seaborne oil supply moves through the Strait of Hormuz - closing the strait would damage economies worldwide and cause gasoline prices to soar.

The United States responded that it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated that such a development was a "red line" for the United States. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the United States has the ability to reopen the strait should Iran close it:

"We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz...That's another red line for us and that we will respond to them."

January 6, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to Iran's official Fars News Agency, the country plans to commence new war games in the Straits of Hormuz next month.

The announcement was made by Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy.

Iran ended a 10 day period of well-publicized war games last Monday, but Fadavi suggested that the upcoming exercises, "...would be "different" from previous ones. He did not elaborate..." [source, http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007270592]

Nearly half of the world oil travels through this historically significant squeeze point and Iran's recent blustering activity there, if nothing else, demonstrates how dependent the West is on oil coming from Islamist regimes.

January 5, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In U.S. educational circles, the prevention of "bullying" has become somewhat of a cause célèbre recently, despite its historical omnipresence in scholastic institutions.

The trajectory of this trend, which is not what it appears on its face, is fraught with the potential of having a substantial corrosive effect on the First Amendment.

First, what is bullying?

Of course all of us understand what has been the standard definition of a bully, one who by their aggressive action, seeks to impose their will upon others. The Miriam Webster dictionary notes that bullying consists of "blustering" and "browbeating" done by a person who is "habitually cruel to others who are weaker."

A classic example of this would be schoolyard tough guy who extorts lunch money from those physically weaker than himself. That efforts should be taken to prevent such behavior would seem to be obligatory to the point of being obvious.

January 5, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Yesterday, the State Department announced the creation of a Bureau of Counterterrorism [see, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/01/180136.htm]. This bureau will supposedly help, in the words of Secty of State Clinton, "...to strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation on counterterrorism. We have a broad and ambitious agenda, and to carry out this work, I am upgrading our office devoted to counterterrorism to a full-fledged bureau within the State Department..."

According to State's presser the new policy will seek to undermine the capacity of those practicing "violent extremism," "their ability to recruit."

But how does one target an amorphous body of would be terrorists without being able to define them past the fact that they conduct themselves in a generally unpleasant manner?

January 4, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A serious split is developing within Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, with one faction favoring the overthrow of the dictatorial regime. This presents a window of opportunity for the West to support regime change before the Islamic Republic successfully tests nuclear weapons. Once the regime has those nuclear bombs, that opening will be much narrower.

Iran has tried hard to show strength in the face of sanctions aimed at pressuring Tehran to quit its suspected nuclear-bomb and missile development programs. Iranian leaders are now flexing their military muscles in the strategic waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to shut it down and choking off a major part of the world's oil supply.

The regime has long tried to scare the West from taking any action against it, by threatening the world's security and stability. However, behind its mask of strength and unity, big cracks are beginning to show.

January 3, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The UK Guardian is reporting that the Obama administration has made the decision to release key members of the Taliban from detention at GITMO into the custody of representatives of the Afghan government.

"The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned...the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund..."

[source, Julian Borger & Jon Boone, Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo Bay to be released in peace talks deal, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/03/taliban-leaders-guantanamo-bay-deal]

If true, this will mark a new low point in Team Obama's ignominious foreign policy.

January 3, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood says it will never recognize the state of Israel and will put Cairo-Tel Aviv Peace Treaty to the test of public opinion once a new government takes office in the North African country.

According to ParsTV, the mouthpiece of the Islamic Regime in Iran, The group's second-in-command, Rashad al-Bayoumi, said in an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat Arabic daily that no member of the Muslim Brotherhood will ever negotiate with an Israeli.

"This is not possible, no matter what the circumstances are. We do not recognize Israel at all. It is a criminal enemy occupier? I will never allow myself to sit down with a criminal," Bayoumi said, noting that Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinian land.

January 2, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In an interview carried today by the Muslim Brotherhood's English website, Ikhwanweb, Dr. John Esposito [founding director of Georgetown's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which the kindly prince endowed to the tune of 20 million dollars] appears to be conflating Salafism [an extreme Sunni Islamist sect which is rapidly gaining political power in Egypt alongside the equally noxious Muslim Brotherhood] with America's "Christian right."

"The political Salafis believe that they have a true vision of Islam and that their version of religion is the one that they practise and the one that other people should practise too in their personal lives. Moreover, they are working to implement this vision in society as a whole... then there is the Christian Right in the US that is involved in politics, another kind of Christianity that tries to impose its own will on other people. In many religions, you have these kinds of ultra-conservative people..."

We challenge Dr. Esposito to produce evidence of an organized right-wing Christian plot - equivalent in scope to that of the revolutionary Islamists - that "tries to impose its own will on other people," via the employment of a global campaign of terror.

January 2, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Egypt's Christians continue to be targeted by Islamists, this time in the village of Baheeg in Upper Egypt where three buildings belonging to Copts were burned to the ground over an alleged religious slight. [see, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/575331]

According to the Al Masry Alyoum online news site, the incident took place last Thursday when a Coptic student was accused of defaming the Prophet by allegedly posting pictures of Mohammed on his Facebook account.

Infuriated by the supposed act of "defamation," the student's classmates then proceeded to torch the structures.

The Coptic student's family has since departed the village while he remains incarcerated for 15 days during which authorities will determine if there will be further measures taken against him. {see, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/579946]

Normally one might surmise that the omnipresence of anti-Christian persecution in Muslim countries - especially with it being on constant public display in countries like Egypt - would demand that Christians be given priority refugee status by the U.S. State Dept. But this doesn't appear to be the case, as the overwhelming majority of those allowed in are from Muslim majority countries:

December 31, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The Hindu [see, http://www.thehindu.com/news/article2755817.ece] online website is reporting that Team Obama's criminally incompetent foreign policy team has unbelievably, asked Yusuf al-Qaradawi to help mediate its on-again-off-again "negotiations" with Afghanistan's key jihadists, the Taliban.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Doha-based Islamist scholar who once called on his followers to back jihadist groups in Jammu and Kashmir, has emerged as a key mediator in secret talks between the U.S. and the Taliban, government sources have told The Hindu."

Al-Qaradawi is the tip of the spear of Sunni Islamist revolutionary theology and the unchallenged intellectual leader of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. He is also a virulent anti-Semite and a supporter of Hamas.

To say that Qaradawi is a jihadist, doesn't do him justice - he is the face of the global Islamic jihad.

If there is any upper limit as to how much this administration is willing to give the Taliban in order for Obama to be able to wave around an Afghani "peace treaty," as he campaigns for a second term, it's certainly not apparent given that this foolish bunch of amateurs has apparently already offered to transfer some of GITMO's most hardened Taliban terrorists to Afghanistan, whereupon they will of course be free and clear to resume their jihad against the West.

December 31, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to MehrNews, the mouthpiece of the Islamic regime in Iran, an Iranian naval commander announced that the Navy will test fire its advanced missiles and torpedoes during the 10-day naval war games, entitled Velayat-90, which started on Saturday.

"During the next days of the war games, Navy's advanced long-range, medium-range, and short-range missiles and smart torpedoes will be test-fired," Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari told the Fars News Agency on Wednesday.

The preliminary stage of the war games ended on Monday, and Iranian warships, submarines, and other naval vessels spread out across the theaters of operations, which cover a wide area from the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Aden. During the tactical stage of the war games, which started on Tuesday, naval forces are supposed to practice various military tactics.

The war games are said to differ from previous ones in terms of the vastness of the area of action and the military equipment and tactics that are being employed.

December 31, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The radical Islamist organization Boko Haram, which murdered and maimed innocent Nigerian Christians on Christmas Day, does not represent the majority of Muslims around the world. Boko Haram is a radical Islamist group ("boko haram" means "Western Education is Sinful") that attacked churches last year as well and has vowed similar attacks in the future. Their actions should be condemned by all Muslims, especially by Muslim leaders.

Islamist groups like Boko Haram want to create an Islamic state based on their interpretations of shariah (Islamic jurisprudence). The Christian presence in Nigeria is perceived as a great impediment to this mission (48 % of the Nigerian population is Christian). The choice Christmas Day to perpetrate their wanton violence illustrates the hateful fascistic sectarian state Boko Haram seeks to impose upon the Nigerian people.

December 27, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Last week in a low key manner, the remnants of U.S. combat forces departed Iraq. The abrupt manner in which this policy was enacted, against almost unanimous opposition by the U.S. military command apparatus, is yielding a quick and bitter harvest.

Just a few days after the Obama pullout, a massive car-bomb was detonated in Baghdad killing at least 70 and today the Interior Ministry was attacked with at least 6 reported killed in another suicide bomb explosion.

Over this last weekend an arrest warrant was issued for Iraq's vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, because of his alleged involvement with death squads.

As the Washington Examiner reports, "[it] was a clear signal that the nation remains irreconcilably split along religious lines. Neighboring countries have been quick to exploit that divide." [source, http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/2011/12/withdrawal-us-troops-could-cause-civil-war/2036346#ixzz1hlMIBjSx].

The speculation is that absent a continuing U.S. presence, Iraq's Shia majority will quickly and forcefully move against their minority Sunni rivals and that a civil war might well quickly ensue. If this does happen, and there is nothing in Iraq's short experiment with democracy to prove otherwise, president Maliki's Shia government will increasingly seek cooperation from its neighbor Iran, with all of the complications such a relationship will pose for the U.S., Iraq and the region.

During the event's second session a presentation was made entitled, "The Industry of Hate in the Public Square," with Edina Lekovic [MPAC director of policy and programming] serving as moderator. Panelists included Wajahat Ali [playwright, author of "Domestic Crusaders"] Aziza Hasan [MPAC So. Cal government relations director] and Steve Rohde [past president ACLU]. Rohde was a last minute replacement for Mark Potok whose name appeared in the program book.

MPAC's president Salam Al-Marayati lead things off, taking to the podium and asserting that: "Islamophobia is a social disease." He then turned things over to the moderator, Edina Lekovic.

Ms. Lekovic said that this is a time when there is a whirlwind of activity, both foreign and domestic, and that MPAC was focusing on the TLC show All American Muslim and Lowe's withdrawal of its sponsorship. The nature of Islamophobia, she said, is changing. Lekovic stressed that the organization needed people on the ground to work the neighborhoods. To that end index cards were passed around upon which respondents were asked to share their experiences and challenges along these lines.

December 23, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - If the report appearing in the Tennessean is correct, the Army's Junior ROTC program will now allow Muslims to don religious attire while in their military uniforms, including hijab.

"The Army will develop a policy allowing Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets to ask for permission to wear religious headdresses with their uniforms. The decision came in a letter dated Monday, the response to an October complaint filed by the Council of American-Islamic Relations on behalf of a Williamson County student."

The decision came as a result of agitation by CAIR, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the landmark terror financing prosecution, U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation [HLF]. As a result of this prosecution, CAIR has been linked in official documents to Hamas the Palestinian terrorist group which was the beneficiary of at least $12 million in contributions from the now defunct HLF.

"The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, with NAIT, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas, U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009, ruling."

This stealthy, below the radar screen move by the Army is in keeping with Team Obama's efforts to "fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear..." [source, Barack Obama, June 4, 2009 Cairo speech, WH website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09] which include purging government documents of any references linking Islamic ideology with terrorism as well as gagging military trainers who might have the temerity to speak the truth.

December 22, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to the Islamic regime's Keyhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Hamas leadership has called on Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to form the first ever Arab army to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem.

The Quds News Agency reported that Hamas also called on Arab countries to champion this cause and take preliminary steps toward the establishment of an Arab military coalition. Hamas's statement reads: "The first step is to form Quds Brigades in each Arab country in order to invite the abandoned Palestinians to join, as well as establish, a central Arab military command."

Hamas reiterated in its statement: "The battle for the liberation of Jerusalem is closer than ever and, God willing, we will win."

The Egyptian presidential candidate has also confirmed that the new Egyptian administration will put an end to walling off Gaza.

December 21, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a move sure to rattle the oppressive governmental superstructure which has a stranglehold on K-12 education, the Christian Action Network has sent an in-depth study of the pro-Islamist content present in many of today's major schoolbooks to 500 school administrators nationwide.

The study itself is damning, revealing an almost universal historical revisionism present in this key educational material, the purpose of which is clearly to demean Judaism and Christianity while whitewashing Islam. Though the study keyed on Florida textbooks, the problem [as determined by other studies] is nearly universal across all American school districts.

Examples of this bias include:

Study - "As early as 2002 another high-profile textbook, World History:Patterns of Interaction, a high school world history textbookpublished by Houghton Mifflin under the McDougal Littell imprint,did not mention jihad. Houghton Mifflin's multigrade series thendropped jihad from textbooks; by 2005 Houghton Mifflin hadapparently removed jihad from its entire series of social studiestextbooks."

The difficulty here is that jihad is incumbent upon observant Muslims as stated in the Qur'an, so much so that the duty to perform jihad has been called the "sixth pillar of Islam" [the five traditional pillars being; declaration of faith - the shahada; prayer, salat; almsgiving, zakat; fasting; journey to Mecca, the hajj].

"And Fight those who have not faith in God, nor in the Hereafter, and (who) forbid not what God and His Prophet have forbidden and (who ) are not committed to the religion of truth, of those who have been brought the Book, until they pay tribute by hand, and they are the low." [9:29]

December 19, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - An open letter signed by 32 lefty Congressional Democrats [is that redundant?] as well as Abe Foxman [Director of the Anti-Defamation League] was recently addressed to Robert Niblock, CEO of Lowe's Companies protesting the decision to pull its advertising from a reality/propaganda show appearing on The Learning Channel called, All American Muslim.

The controversial show seems to have been created in an effort to pander to the American Islamist lobby, including Muslim Brotherhood front groups.

This tiny but noisy constituency has been quite vocal since 9/11 accusing - without basis - the United States of being an Islamophobic country, when in reality FBI hate crime statistics consistently prove otherwise, that American Muslims suffer little in the way of religious discrimination.

What really is at stake here is the freedom of speech including the right of American business to choose where it wishes to advertise, rather than being forced into wasting ad dollars in venues pleasing to Congress so that their sacred-cow constituencies might be assuaged.

December 14, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A problematic international conference concludes today in Washington DC. Its stated purpose is building "muscles of respect and empathy and tolerance" between Muslim-majority states and the West with regard to free speech and discussions of Islam.

About the event, Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Lawfare Project states, "...Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will join Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), after meetings the two held earlier this year to discuss the March 2011 passage of UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on "Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping . . . against, persons based on religion or belief," a Resolution the United States co-sponsored with Egypt. The OIC is a 57-member voting block of Muslim-majority nations at the United Nations, which purports to represent Muslim interests globally and is a major proponent of lawfare against free speech. Over the past 10 years, the OIC has repeatedly lobbied for "anti-blasphemy" or "defamation against Islam" (later changed to "religion") resolutions to censor what it deems offensive speech against Islam."

Regarding some of the many problems such religiously based legislation would create, Ms. Goldstein asserts:

"The Resolution itself is troubling for a variety of reasons: not only does it directly challenge basic tenets of liberal democracy and contradict the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, it also counters the U.S. position on free speech, as stated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself on December 8, 2011 at The Hague's conference on Internet Freedom. There, as keynote speaker, Clinton said the U.S. ardently supports unfettered free speech without government censorship on the Internet. Resolution 16/18, conversely, encourages governments to decide what constitutes permissible and impermissible speech where religion is concerned. A central tenet of liberal democracy is the right to speak publicly and critically about government and religion, and any government-imposed censorship of the latter should be of the utmost concern. The resolution also comes at a time when free speech about the threat of militant Islam, terrorism and their sources of financing are under attack by lawfare lawsuits designed to punish and silence anyone brave enough to speak on such matters, as detailed in the new book Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech."

December 12, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On Friday, November 18, 2011 UC Davis [UCD] Police were called on campus to remove tents from the UC Davis Quad, where members of Occupy UC Davis had set up their tents in protest of tuition increases. These encampments violate UC Davis' university policies, even in the context of a peaceful protest.

The police, there at Chancellor Katehi's request, issued a warning to the protesters saying that if they did not take down their tents they would be arrested and face legal repercussions. Some of the protesters took the hint, broke down their camps and didn#39;t have to deal with the police any further. Others however decided to defy the police request. The police had no other choice but to arrest them and break down their tents.

With the tents being torn down and with the protesters who had failed to comply with the police's requests detained, that should have been the end but, it wasn't.

December 12, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - All is not lost. We live in an age of terrifying anti-Semitism, and so far, the Jewish establishment's only real response has been a competition over who can surrender fastest. But Jewish self-respect is not dead.

A few courageous men and women - barely more than a minyan - jump out of bed each morning, determined to defend Israel and the Jewish people, combat Islamic outrages, and expose the Jews in the Basement - the craven, self-appointed Jewish grandees.

True, this handful of heroes are sometimes reviled in their own communities and threatened with lawsuits and jail. They're loudly ignored, defamed, and detested by the establishment. It doesn't matter. Each one is blessed with holy chutzpah - an invigorating spiritual cocktail of brazen effrontery, steely stubbornness, and passion for justice.

December 12, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran is essential to confronting the Islamic regime and its activities of pursuing the nuclear bomb, expanding its missile program, and its collaboration with terrorist entities worldwide.

It is time to show the radicals ruling Iran that America is serious about preventing the Jihadists in Tehran from obtaining the bomb and that it will support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy.

Sanctioning the regime's Central Bank will weaken the hardliners and their surrogates who depend on the oil dollars and can become an effective tool for positive change in Iran.

December 8, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Barbara Walters' irresponsible and disgusting interview of President Bashar al-Assad was a direct betrayal of the people of Syria who have sacrificed everything in hopes of attaining their freedom. ABC's decision to send Walters' to Damascus and continue their tour of the Middle East's leading despots demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of just who these assassins are and what they have done to their own people.

Walters' post interview analysis goes as far as giving Assad the perception of being disconnected from what is happening at the hands of his military. Instead of seeing the broad abuse that is taking place hourly in Syria, ABC viewers were subjected to a litany of insane denials. It was as if Assad was laying the groundwork for the day he will face a tribunal in The Hague by separating himself from his actions.

As if Walter's interview was not enough, the U.S. State Department has the unmitigated gall to offensively chime in with Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner stating 'just from what happened or what took place in the interview, he appeared utterly disconnected with the reality that's going on in his country and the brutal repression that's being carried out against the Syrian people.'

December 8, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - What to do about Iran? That's the Obama administration's biggest dilemma in the wake of the recent report by the IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog, which all but confirms Iran's insane ambition to develop nuclear weapons.

President Obama, who shaped his policy on Iran believing that a kinder approach would bring about changed behavior in Iran's tyrannical leaders, now must know bitterly that the mullahs and their henchmen have no intention of changing.

With presidential elections only a year away, Obama is on the horns of a dilemma. Continuing his sanctions policy, at least as it is right now, won't work. That leaves him with either a military confrontation with the Islamic state or accepting Iran as a nuclear power.

Obama and many administration officials have openly talked about the difficulties of military action, however, as such action could further destabilize the global economy. Such action would be a devastating shock to the teetering European economy and drag down the United States.

December 5, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - At a Friday evening, private fundraiser in the posh digs of a member of New York's one-percenters, president Obama told a series of whoppers to a group of primarily Jewish voters which under different circumstances [let's say a Saturday Night skit] would have been hilarious.

Midway through his pitch, Obama must have taken a quick excursion into the Twilight Zone stating, "I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. And that's not just our opinion, that's the opinion of the Israeli government. .." [source, WH transcript, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/30/remarks-president-campaign-event]

Misrepresentation one; this president should have been born with a third hand specifically adapted for patting himself on the back, he does it so much.

Misrepresentation two; this administration has weakened nearly every traditional alliance it was handed three years ago, especially our very special relationship with the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel.

Misrepresentation three; we would suggest that the hosts of this fundraising soirée ask PM Netanyahu regarding his opinion of Mr. Obama's administration, especially in the wake of Obama's comments [captured via a live mic which he thought wasn't on] agreeing with Sarkozy at the G-20 that Netanyahu was a liar and generally a pain-in-the-ass.

We sincerely hope that the president knew he was fibbing while making this outrageous statement rather than believing his own PR, but we fear that he feels he has become the equivalent to the Pope of what remains of the free world, speaking Ex Cathedra when the opportunity presents itself.

December 5, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - James Clapper, Team Obama's Director of National Intelligence and infamous over his assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood is primarily a secular organization, has sent a letter [see, http://www.politico.com/static/PPM229_111123_dniletter.html] to Senator Diane Feinstein [D-CA] the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, objecting to language [the McCain-Levin amendment] included in the National Defense Authorization Act which reiterates the principle that those making war on the United States [i.e., Muslim terrorists] are military combatants and as such, can rightly upon capture be detained by the military.

In the letter Clapper maintains that, "...the provision that mandates military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects could restrict the ability of our nation's intelligence professionals to acquire valuable intelligence and prevent future terrorist attack...these limitations could deny our nation the ability to respond flexibly and appropriately to unfolding events..."

What Mr. Clapper seems to really want is for terror suspects to be processed entirely within the U.S. civil court system rather than treating them as enemy combatants and thus allowing for military detention in appropriate cases.

December 5, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "In the midst of all the diplomatic commotion, Iran continued to build its uranium enrichment capability. When our inspectors visited Natanz on March 20 (2007), they saw that Iran had installed a total of one thousand centrifuges. It was both ironic and distressing to recall that just one year earlier the buildup of Iran's enrichment program could have been halted at thirty to forty centrifuges."

This is a quote from Mohamed ElBaradei's book "The Age of Deception." Between 1997 and 2009 ElBaradei was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Nuclear "centrifuge technology" was also used in Pakistan and North Korea when these two countries built a nuclear bomb. This technology originated in the Netherlands where a Pakistani atomic spy named Abdul Qadir Khan stole it in the 1970s. He returned to his home country to become "the father of the Pakistani atom bomb."

Although all his inspectors were increasingly alarmed by Iran's nuclear program and frequent attempts to cover it up, ElBaradei, an Egyptian Muslim, naively assumed "that Iran's goal is not to become another North Korea ? a nuclear weapons possessor but a pariah in the international community ? but rather Brazil or Japan, a technological powerhouse with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons if the political winds were to shift, while remaining a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT."

December 4, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Bumbling Secretary of State Clinton is meddling in Israeli domestic politics again, this time attacking proposed legislation that in her opinion is anti-democratic.

At issue is the separation of the genders in certain instances practiced by Hareidi Jews, which they believe is a matter of modesty. Additionally there is legislation afoot which would ban continued government funding of NGOs and journalistic groups whose criticism of Israel has reached fever pitch.

Clinton's comments understandably evoked a blizzard of criticism from Israeli politicians who essentially told her to mind her own business and shut up.

"National Union MK Uri Ariel commented Sunday that Clinton "would do well not to interfere with Israel's internal affairs...Her unwanted interference is an additional proof that Israel needs laws that will preserve its character and protect it from interference by foreign governments who try to minimize Israel's Jewish character..." Yuval Steinitz Israel's Finance Minister stated, "Israel is a living and liberal democracy, I do not know of many other democracies that are any better..." [source, Israel National News, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150363]

December 2, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Lest you be swayed into believing the spin coming out of DC and the WH stenographers corps [the legacy media] today's comparatively sunny unemployment report might well be the result of what economists call statistical chatter, meaningless data essentially unconnected to economic reality.

The go to Bureau of Labor Statistics stat has historically been U3, represented by today's 8.6% number. However this figure masks underlying conditions which should be frightening to anyone interested in this country's long term economic viability.

Please hold the conspiracy theories about "cooked" data coming out of BLS, its methodology has remained constant since the last major revision in 1994.

This is the bad news, U6 which measures those unemployed as well as those who wish to work but have simply given up looking at this time is 15.6%, a far cry from today's ballyhooed stat. Even worse, the rate of labor participation, a measure of how much of America works is at a 30 year low, 64%. You would have to go back to the early 80's and the Carter induced recession to find any parallel.

March 14, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - An incendiary, near declaration of war against Israel has been issued by an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood entity, the "Freedom and Justice Party" and published Monday on the Ikhwan's website [source, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29775].

The statement reads in part:

"Israel must fully realize that Egypt, whose people have bravely erupted against and toppled the tyrannical corrupt regime which provided it with constant and direct support, will not under any circumstances accept such Israeli actions and deliberate violent escalation, which put the entire region at risk and threaten international relations, stability and security. The FJP stresses that the security of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people inevitably impacts the national security of Egypt...post-revolution Egypt will stand solidly by her besieged brothers in Gaza. The party also asserts that the siege Israel has been imposing on Gaza is no longer acceptable under any justification, which requires full and permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing, just like all other border crossings linking Egypt with its neighboring Arab countries..."

Further along in the political screed, the Brotherhood declares that it will render whatever assistance - apparently including arms - it might deem necessary to support Gaza's terrorist Hamas regime, "Further, the FJP vows full support for the people of Gaza...which entails providing them with all they need to ensure that they obtain their internationally and legally recognized rights..."

The MB logic for war seems clear - it has declared that Egypt's sphere of political dominion extends beyond its borders and into Gaza and that for all practical purposes any military action taken by Israel against Gaza constitutes a direct and unacceptable threat to Egypt.

Of course the "aggression" against Gaza touted by the MB is actually a long overdue defensive operation, in direct response to the launching of over 200 missiles from Gaza targeting Israeli cities. In response, the IDF carried out a series of raids including nearly 40 airstrikes against Hamas' war making infrastructure including rocket launchers and weapons dumps.

We find it unsurprising that the MB's belligerent statement nowhere mentions the provocation by Gaza which led to the IDF response. It is also important to note that numerous sources including YNetNews [source, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4201948,00.html] are reporting the use of human shields by the Hamas terrorists so as to increase the civilian carnage which in turn is then used to gin-up additional Muslim rage and "international condemnation," against the Jewish state, "Gaza terrorists firing rockets at Israel have been using local residents as human shields, thereby leading to civilian casualties in IDF strikes, the army charged Monday..."

March 13, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a move certain to heighten tensions between the West and the Muslim world, according to numerous reports including the English version of the Aram website [http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/36666/Egypt/Politics-/Egyptian-parliament-urges-Israel-envoy-expulsion.aspx] Egypt's Parliament has voted to expel the Israeli ambassador while demanding that Egypt's representative to Israel be recalled.

The legislative body also called for an end to natural gas exports to the Jewish state.

The measure which declared, "Egypt will never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity which we consider as the first enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation," was adopted without a dissenting vote.

All of this is a part of a comprehensive move by the Muslim Brotherhood to force the ruling military authority, "to revise all its relations and agreements with that enemy."

Iran's PressTV is carrying much of the same information [see, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/231529.html] with an additional twist, suggested during an interview with Mark Glenn one of the founders of the Islamist front group Crescent & Cross Solidarity Movement, that Egypt might find Russia an eager partner after the Americans have been driven from the country.

March 13, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In an interview recently aired on the Talk Radio Network [TRN], Jimmy Carter, arguably the man most responsible for the Iranian terrorist state, said that in his judgment, Iran will be dissuaded from developing nuclear weapons by the West's economic "sanctions" against it.

Carter claimed - apparently even after the American diplomatic staff in Tehran was taken hostage for 444 days under his watch, the event which assuredly brought his regime down - that had we maintained "contacts" with the revolutionary state, "circumstances would have probably been better now." [source, http://www.trn1.com/jimmy-carter-unchanging-principles-can-guide-our-nation-during-uncertain-ti]

He also implied that there is no need for war that, "the top leaders of Iran, who are the clergy, have said they will not do so [develop nuclear weapons]...[and] I think the economic sanctions will be adequate..."

Mr. Carter appears not to be concerned at all with the prospect of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood coming to power. In doing so he contradicted numerous reports that the MB will quickly jettison the Israeli/Egyptian peace accord, saying that he "trusts" them [the MB] to "do the right thing."

"I've met with the top leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood...and they assured me personally...that they will honor the peace treaty which I helped negotiate..."

So according to the 39th president of the United States, we have nothing to fear, all is well in the Muslim world, after all, they assured Mr. Carter it was so.

March 8, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Emboldened by impressive electoral successes, Egypt's terrorist Muslim Brotherhood announced today that it will seek a "no-confidence," vote shortly to oust the government headed by PM Kamal al-Ganzouri.

According to the Egyptian Independent website, "Senior Muslim Brotherhood MP Essam al-Erian indicated Parliament would reject a policy statement presented by Ganzouri to the chamber in the near future. "There is a move towards rejecting the government statement," Erian said in a brief phone interview..." [source, http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/702201]

The Brotherhood expressed its intention to then grab complete control of Egypt's government, "The military should appoint a new government and should appoint the government which obtained the majority..."

That entity would of course be the Muslim Brotherhood.

Such a development would represent an opportunity, most likely previously unimaginable, because in addition to gaining control of the reins of government - a long held Brotherhood goal - the move would additionally solidity its already considerable sway within the military.

The Hypocrisy Of The Catholic Church On Healthcare Mandate Catches Up With It

By WILLIAM MAYER

March 6, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It should go without saying that the American Catholic Church is now engaged in an intense struggle with the Obama administration regarding its decision to force Catholic institutions to provide a full range of "birth control/family planning" services to its employees.

The administration maintains that such an edict [the final language was just published in the Federal Register] doesn't rise to the threshold of abridging the Church's First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Less prominent in the give and take on this issue is the understanding that for the most part the U.S Catholic Church, primarily through its governing board, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as its lobbyists cooperated very closely with the president on the Affordable Health Care for America Act, now commonly referred to as Obama Care.

So complete was its devotion to the principle of government funded universal health care that at one point, feeling the extent of the coverage being offered was insufficient, Church representatives suggested that it be expanded to cover the approximately 12M [primarily Mexican] illegal aliens as a matter of Christian equity.

We are expected to ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of these illegals are at least nominally Roman Catholic.

Much was written at the time about the intricate kabuki-like dance between the administration and the USCCB in crafting language that would make it appear that the comprehensive health care bill would never be used to provide federal funding for abortion.

Life issues quickly became the road block in the health care equation as far as the Church was concerned, hence a "compromise," was hatched; one that appeared to comply with the abortion prohibition represented by the long-in-the-tooth Hyde amendment, which traditionally has had heavy bipartisan support.

Amidst unrelenting pressure, the chief proponent of carving out this exception, a weak-kneed Democrat Representative Bart Stupak, quickly folded his hand, instead agreeing to a loosely worded executive order which would supposedly provide the same protections and safeguards.

"As both sides of the debate remember all too well, the final passage of Obamacare last year hinged on a many-layered debate on abortion funding in the final bill. The balance of power on the final vote in the House of Representatives rested with a small group of pro-life Democrats, led by former Representative Bart Stupak (DMI), who abandoned their support for a comprehensive restriction on abortion funding. Instead, the "Stupak 7" settled for a presidential executive order that purported to fill the gaps in the legislation that allow various types of abortion subsidies - through tax credits, mandates on insurance companies and states, and direct payments..."

The USCCB's "new age" teaching on health care is encapsulated as follows:

Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care - In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. Access to health care should not depend on where a person works, how much a family earns, or where a person lives. Instead, every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a right to life and to those things necessary to sustain life, including affordable, quality health care. This teaching is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve "the least of these," our concern for human life and dignity, and the principle of the common good. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do not have health insurance. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, the current health care system is in need of fundamental reform..."

So in the modern iteration of Catholic theology, government health care is a right and hence, as a moral imperative, Obama Care was fully supported by the USCCB.

The non-compromise on abortion was welcomed [wink-wink-nod-nod] by the USCCB and publicly supported by the leadership of powerhouse Catholic entities including the Catholic Health Association, run by Sister Carol Keehan a "progressive" nun. 60 Catholic religious orders [primarily nuns] were signatory to a letter greeting this non-compromise as being fully acceptable.

One of the dirty little secrets in this aspect of the controversy is that Keehan has always maintained that she and CHA were in complete lock-step with the USCCB, working with them throughout the entire process.

We see no reason to disagree with Sr. Keehan on that point.

The seminal USCCB document, Making Health Care Abortion Neutral, states in its concluding paragraph, "Health care reform whose goal is to advance health coverage, not advance an agenda on abortion, will take care to be abortion neutral. It will preserve current policies that bar use of taxpayer funds, respect conscience rights, and generally encourage childbirth over abortion; it will not mandate abortion as part of any "basic" or minimum benefit package." [source, http://old.usccb.org/sdwp/national/2009-07-17-bg-healthcare-abortion.pdf].

For some inexplicable reason, this document is no longer available on the new USCCB website as site specific internet searches produce zero hits. It is however available at the "old" USCCB website as heretofore noted, again found via a non site specific 'net search.

Notwithstanding the cloud of obfuscation behind which the USCCB is now attempting to hide, America's Catholic governing board unequivocally supported the final Obama Care bill despite the legislation's clear expansion of funding of euthanasia-like services, birth control and "sex education," all on the strength of weasel worded lip service on the abortion question.

So, paraphrasing a quip by the president's favorite preacher Reverend Wright, "the USCCB's chickens have come home to roost" - and with results fully predictable at the time this legislation was originally rammed through Congress and then quickly signed by Obama.

For her efforts, Sister Keehan received a ceremonial pen used during the president's melodramatic public signing of the bill.

As a result the Church now wants its congregants to believe that it was utterly flummoxed when Mr. Obama issued the mandate through HHS that will require Catholic institutions to fund what they continue to claim is anathema.

Unfortunately for the Church, this dodge simply doesn't pass the smell test.

Are we to believe that, surprise...surprise...surprise, the U.S. Catholic Church is now apparently led by a consortium of Gomer Pyles masquerading as bishops who couldn't conceive that such a development might ensue?

Let there be no confusion here, we fully support the Church's efforts to battle [however weakly] the "family planning services" mandate laid down by the imperial Mr. Obama.

So when New York's Cardinal Dolan bleats his now high minded opposition to the HHS mandate, he should do so knowing full well that the organization [USCCB] over which he now presides is in large part responsible for this problem in the first place, having long ago sacrificed its moral integrity in pursuit of temporal power.

Dutch Holocaust Survivor - "I Saw How The Mufti Of Jerusalem Paid A Visit To Auschwitz-Monowitz"

By EMERSON VERMAAT

March 5, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "It was a very hot day in June or July 1944 when I was at work in Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III. And then I suddenly noticed a group of people who looked like actors. They were wearing long robes and strange headgear. Occasionally, internees did perform a play in the camp. I wanted to find out myself and as I walked towards that group I was stopped by a high ranking SS-officer whom I didn't know. He was from the main camp (Auschwitz I) or Birkenau (Auschwitz II). The officer asked me, 'What do you want?' 'I just wanted to know whether these people are actors or not. Is there going to be a stage performance tonight?' 'These people aren't actors,' the SS-officer told me. 'They are the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his retinue.' I then asked him, 'What is he doing here?' 'He is paying a visit to the camp,' the SS-officer said. 'He lives in Berlin where he enjoys Hitler's personal protection. He is now paying a visit to Monowitz to see how the Jews are working themselves to death in factories. He is also in Auschwitz to see the gas chambers. When we have won the war he will return to Palestine to build gas chambers and kill the Jews who are living over there.'"

Ernst Verduin, a Dutch Jew from Amsterdam born in 1927, was deported to Auschwitz in September 1943. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau he was first selected for the gas chamber but then somehow managed to leave the "gas chamber group" and join the group selected for slave labor. "An SS-officer protested loudly, but I didn't care," Verduin told me at the end of February. 'He didn't use his machine gun and kill me, although he could have done so quite easily. I later learned that the SS wanted to avoid panic at all costs and that I wasn't the only one who switched from one group to another. I already knew about the gas chambers of Auschwitz when I was still in Holland. An SS-officer named Ettlinger who was stationed at the concentration camp of Vught, told me about it. Ettlinger had previously been stationed at Auschwitz, so he knew exactly what was going on there."

"The worst thing I saw after my arrival at Auschwitz was a group of prisoners who entered the gas chambers. These people were about to die. I later tried not to remember this terrible spectacle." Verduin only spent a few hours in Auschwitz I and II and was then transferred to Monowitz where he stayed between September 1943 and mid-January 1945.

Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was an important Palestinian leader who sided with the Nazis during the Second World War. Not only did this hate cleric and jihadist meet Hitler in November 1941, also did he cultivate the personal friendship of Adolf Eichmann, the very man who was in charge of organizing the Holocaust. Eichmann told his friend Willem Sassen after the war that he was proud of having killed at least 5 million "enemies of the German Reich." The Holocaust was codenamed "The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" ("Die Endloesung der Judenfrage"). The Mufti used a similar term on at least one occasion.

"About four million Jews have been killed in the various death camps, and an additional two million have been killed in another manner, most of whom were executed by the SS-Einsatz commandos of the Security Police during the invasion of Russia," Eichmann told Wilhelm Hoettl at the end of August 1944. Hoettl was an SS-Sturmbannführer (major) stationed at Budapest at the time. In Hungary alone, more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to the gas chambers between May 8, and July 8, 1944  a very short period indeed. Eichmann personally oversaw the whole operation. So when Haj Amin Al-Husseini visited Auschwitz and Monowitz in the summer of 1944, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being exterminated.

Verduin claims that few people believed him when he said that he saw how the Mufti of Jerusalem paid a visit to Auschwitz-Monowitz. Only Simon Wiesenthal wrote a book back in 1947 in which he claims that the Mufti and his staff "paid visits to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek to convince themselves of the capacity of the crematoria." "Haj Amin was introduced to the SS-guards and expressed his appreciation for those SS-men who were very capable," Wiesenthal writes. But Wiesenthal was confronted with scepticism, too. However, Verduin told me that he saw how the Mufti and his group "were accompanied by very high ranking SS-officers." "They were not far from the camp's sick barracks and the Mufti was clearly talking to these high-ranking SS-officers."

The SS-officer who told Verduin about the Mufti's visit threatened him that if he would not resume work immediately he would leave Monowitz entirely. Verduin, of course, had no intention of being killed in the gas chambers of Birkenau, so he did as he was told. But he informed some of his trusted camp mates of what he had seen.

The Grand Mufti and Eichmann

That the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Eichmann were very good friends was revealed by Dieter Wisliceny who knew Eichmann since the mid-1930s. It was about one year after the Second World War that Wisliceny wrote detailed notes in prison. Wisliceny's notes were quoted by Gideon Hausner, the chief public prosecutor at the Trial against Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Wisliceny wrote: "After the Mufti Al-Husseini arrived in Germany, he paid a visit to Himmler. A short while thereafter the Grand Mufti visited the director of the Jewish Section at the Gestapo Department IV, Obersturmbannführer Eichmann, is his office in Berlin, 166 Kurfürstenstrasse. I no longer remember the exact date. Possibly it was at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942. By chance I was with Eichmann a few days later, when he told me in detail about this visit. Eichmann lectured to the Grand Mufti in his map room, where he had collected statistical accounts of the Jewish population of various European countries  he lectured in detail about the solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. The Grand Mufti, according to him, was most impressed and said to Eichmann that he had already asked Himmler and had in fact secured Himmler's consent on this point, that a representative of Eichmann should come to Jerusalem as his personal advisor when he, the Grand Mufti would go back after the victory of the Axis Powers (i.e. Nazi-Germany, Italy and Japan, EV). In that conversation Eichmann asked me whether I was not willing to accept the post. But I rejected in principle such Oriental adventures. Eichmann was greatly impressed by the personality of the Grand Mufti. He repeatedly said to me, both then and on a later occasion, that the Mufti had made a powerful impression on him, and also on Himmler, and that he had an acknowledged influence on Arab-Jewish affairs. To my knowledge, Eichmann saw the Mufti from time to time and spoke to him."

So Eichmann, Himmler and the Mufti planned another Holocaust in Palestine, a British mandate at time. Their plan was about to succeed in the summer on 1942 when German troops were not far from the Suez Canal and were also on the offensive in southern Russia. (The Nazi flag was installed on Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus in August 1942.)

Gideon Hausner later wrote in his excellent book "Justice in Jerusalem": "The ex-Mufti's ties with Eichmann were of long standing. At the beginning of 1942 Eichmann received him and his retinue at the department's headquarters and lectured to them on the Final Solution in Europe. The ex-Mufti was so strongly impressed that he immediately requested Himmler to designate someone on Eichmann's team to be his 'personal advisor' on 'finally solving' the Jewish problem also in Palestine, once the ex-Mufti was reinstated in his office by the victorious Axis. Eichmann welcomed the offer. 'A priceless jewel The biggest friend of the Arabs,' recorded the ex-Mufti on Eichmann in his personal diary."

Hausner referred to Haj Amin Al-Husseini as the "ex-Mufti" as the British and their Arab allies no longer recognized him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

When Rumania and Hungary, two allies of Nazi Germany, wanted to send 2700 Jewish children to Palestine, the Mufti decided to intervene. On June 28, 1943, he wrote two identical letters to the Rumanian and Hungarian Foreign Ministers. In those letters he stated that "this will not solve the Jewish question" (the Nazi term for mass extermination). "He argued," Lukasz Hirszowicz writes, "that the Jews should be sent to Poland instead, 'where they are under active supervision,'" "The Mufti worked closely with the Nazi machinery responsible for exterminating the Jews."The Mufti knew exactly what "under active supervision in Poland" in the summer of 1943 meant. It was in Nazi occupied Poland that the death camps were located. Auschwitz, too, was located on territory that originally belonged to Poland.

Wisliceny claims that the Mufti also prevented 10,000 Jewish children from leaving Poland. "It was planned to exchange these children for German civilian prisoners, through the services of the International Red Cross. But suddenly Wisliceny was summoned to Berlin by Eichmann. "He disclosed to me to me that the idea of the planned operation had become known to the Grand Mufti, by means of his intelligence service in Palestine. As a result he protested vigorously to Himmler, using the argument that these Jewish children would, within a few years become adults and would strengthen the Jewish element in Palestine. Following this, Himmler (as he told me) forbade the whole operation."After Eichmann had been abducted from Argentina to be sentenced in Israel for war crimes and genocide, Golda Meir, Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, told the UN Security Council: "One million children  the future generation  were annihilated. Who can encompass this picture in all its horror and its consequences for the Jewish people for many generations to come and for Israel?" And she commented in her memoirs: "To my sorrow there are still people who do not understand that we are committed to live and act so that those Jews who were killed in the gas chambers will have been the last Jews ever to die without defending themselves."

A recent and very thorough Dutch study points out that 17,964 Jewish, Sinti and Roma children from Holland were murdered by the Nazis between 1942 and 1945. Eichmann paid 4 to 5 visits to Holland, instructing his subordinates to deport more than 100,000 Jews: men, women, children and even lots of babies. One of those babies was Koentje Gezang. He died in the gas chambers of Sobibor on May 21, 1943.

Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in The Netherlands. He is currently writing a book on Adolf Eichmann to be published this year by Aspekt Publishers, Soesterberg, The Netherlands. Website: emersonvermaat.com.

Sources:

Author's interview with Ernst Verduin, The Netherlands, February 29, 2012.

Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), vol. XXXI, p. 85, 86. Affidavit of Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, 26 November 1945.

March 5, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - San Diego Senator Christine Kehoe, (D), has submitted a bill to the California legislature, SB 1501, Abortion, which is making waves throughout the national media.

This bill would recognize an expanded list of non-physiciansmainly nurses, nurse practitioners and midwiveswho are licensed and authorized to commit abortions, especially first trimester suction abortions and chemical abortions.

On Tuesday, February 27th, Kehoe has stated that, "We believe it will give many California women access to earlier, safer procedures in the first trimester of their pregnancy," She said, further, that she was introducing the bill because "half of California's counties do not have an abortion provider."

She is also motivated by a long lingering fear within the radical feminist/abortion camp that men will somehow regain control over women's bodies and prohibit abortions forcing women into a pregnancy bondage. They display photos of Congressional hearings depicting men only giving testimony regarding abortion as their proof.

This bill represents the oldest most radical element within the pro abortion/Feminist stable of followers. This is a first step towards a long sought do-it-yourself abortion sorority or sisterhood. The internet is filled with groups advocating and doing the training of and execution of do-it-yourself abortion kits for women in the privacy of their own homes. Several of these groups are within the San Diego/Los Angeles area as well as in the San Francisco Bay Area. Women are, apparently according to these groups, committing their own abortions and assisting (illegally) other women to abort themselves. All in the name of privacy.

Almost practically guaranteeing successful passage is the support by the two most powerful leaders in the legislature, principle co-authors, Assembly leader, John Perez, (D-L.A.) and Senate Leader, Darrell Steinberg,(D-Sacramento.)

Contra Costa Senator Mark DeSaulnier(D), is listed as a Senate co-author along with several other Bay Area legislators Sen. Loni Hancock, (D-Oakland) Nancy Skinner, (D-Oakland). Sen. Mark Leno, (D-SF) Tom Ammiano, (D-SF)as well as other members of the LGBT legislative caucus.

California was one of the five original states to pass legalized abortion in 1967. We were assured then, that abortion would be performed in a clean, safe, sanitary hospital by compassionate doctors of unquestioned medical principle, for the few women whose lives were threatened by a pregnancy.

Though that original, limited-access-to-abortion, legislation was signed by Governor Reagan. It was Jerry Brown who, during his first term as Governor, following Reagan, following Roe v Wade, expanded the reach of the abortionists to California's minor children through the Minor Consent Act. He also refused to cooperate with then extant federal reporting requirements for reimbursement for reproductive costs and declared that the state of California would bear the full cost of state sanctioned abortions, thereby not having to be accountable to anyone.

This bill requires changes to state Business and Professions Code, Section 2253, relating to licensing and training of nurses, nurse practitioners and those working in the medical field who would be eligible for licensing to perform abortions. It changes the definition of what is an illegal abortion.

The bill is endorsed by the ACLU, Health Access, Nat'l Abortion Rights Action League - NARAL. Several amendments are expected to be added as the bill moves through the legislature. Please stay tuned for further developments. The bill is expected to move quickly.

Gov. Brown, according to Governor watchdog groups, estimate that he will once again be instrumental in expanding access and lowering standards in regard to abortion practices.

The bill was submitted to the legislature on February 24, 2012. All bills have a 30 day waiting period before being assigned to a committee. This is the time to contact your local senator and assembly member to register firm but polite opposition to this further degradation of women, babies and humanity in general. You will find your local legislator's information in the front section of your phone book, or go to www.leginfo.ca.gov.

March 1, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Iran's semi-official news agency, Press TV, is reporting that there has possibly been an explosion damaging a major Saudi oil pipeline, "An explosion has hit oil pipelines in the flashpoint Saudi Arabian city of Awamiyah in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province." [source, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229494.html]

This is all the information that appears to be available at the present and we have not obtained independent confirmation of the facts surrounding the matter.

Speculation is rife regarding both the veracity of the report as well as the cause should it prove to be accurate.

In response to the alleged incident, oil futures have leapt above $110/bbl after the market's close [see, WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577255162876617488.html?mod=googlenews_wsj] making this very bad news for Team Obama, whose energy secretary Stephen Chu just yesterday testified as to the administration''s lack of interest in keeping the price of oil down.

Chu has a history of favoring rising oil prices as a method of discouraging the use of fossil fuel.